


Knowing

by astolat



Series: POI works [43]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do," John said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

"Duh," Shaw said, in the most obnoxious way possible. It barely registered. John was too busy feeling like someone had taken his legs out from under him with a crowbar. He would have liked not to believe it; he would've liked to tell himself she had it wrong. He couldn't.

He spent the next three weeks angry and getting angrier. Harold noticed after the first week, asked him doubtfully if something was wrong after the second, and confronted him in the library after the third, only to stare at him in blank confusion when John snarled at him, "I know."

"Know what?" Harold said, sounding bewildered.

"That you — " John stopped. Harold only kept staring at him in perfectly blank confusion. "That you _want me_ ," John said.

Harold blinked, and then looked even more bewildered. "What?"

John ground his teeth. "Are you going to tell me you _don't?_ " he said, silkily. If Harold tried to deny —

"No, I do," Harold said, as easily as if he'd been admitting to a taste for glazed doughnuts. "But what on earth does that have to do with this?"

"It never occurred to you," John said, "that maybe I'd have a problem with that?"

"No," Harold said.

"Not once," John said.

"No, John, not once," Harold said, beginning to sound — _exasperated_. "I suppose I might have considered it a potential issue before we first met, but I wasn't attracted to you until _after_ I already knew you, so I can with perfect honesty say that it has not once occurred to me that it would be remotely an issue. And for that matter, I don't believe it _now_."

"No?" John said. His mouth was trembling at the corner, trying to smile.

Harold had the gall to glare at him. "No, I don't. What's the _actual_ problem here?"

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do," John said. He was almost sick with rage, something savage and desperate clawing in circles in his belly. He felt ready to _kill_ someone, to kill a dozen people, to explode with violence; unbearable.

And Harold still didn't look even a little scared or worried; Harold said, "Oh, for Heaven's — " and stopped. He compressed his mouth, his eyes. "All right. John," he said, voice level, and took a step closer. He'd been standing in the hallway in John's way, blocking the exit; he took a step closer and was in arm's reach, in John's personal space, close enough to —

"John," Harold said, "will you please have sex with me?"

John stared at him. Harold was looking up at him, waiting, _expectant_ —

"Yes," John heard himself say. The snarl of rage in his gut smoothed out like a whole ocean calming, waves flattening beneath Harold's hand.

"I'll want to — _have_ you," Harold said, prodding.

"Okay," John said, faintly. He couldn't look at Harold's face anymore. He stared over Harold's head at the grate. They'd go to the back room. Harold would unbutton his shirt. Harold would tell him to lie down, to stretch out. Harold would touch him. Harold would _have_ him. There were speckles at the sides of John's vision. He didn't seem to be getting enough breath.

"Well, that rather conclusively rules out your suffering some bizarre fit of homophobia, wouldn't you agree?" Harold said. "Now will you please tell me what's _actually_ — "

"You _didn't_ ask," John said.

Harold paused. "What?"

Harold was still in arm's reach. John reeled him in and kissed him. Harold made startled muffled noises and flailed at John's chest uncoordinatedly for a moment before managing to brace himself and pull his head back to gawk at him.

"You _didn't ask_ ," John said, desperately. If Harold didn't mean it, if Harold wanted but didn't want —

But Harold said, "I didn't think you — " trailing off, and his body was already starting to relax, his hands on John's chest and arm easing their grip, softening; his thumb slid along the lower curve of John's bicep through his shirt, exploring. " _John,_ " he said, and there was a new note in his voice now, one John had never heard before, low and tender; John hoarded it up jealously.

"Like I said," John said, relief shaking him like dice in a cup, "maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do." He leaned his forehead against Harold's. "I want you to know me," he whispered.

Harold's hands were on his face now, cupping, caressing. "All of you," Harold murmured. "All of you, John," and tilted him back for a kiss.  

#End


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